


The Signal in the Noise

by athena_crikey



Category: Kyou Kara Maou!
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1243396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't in any of Gunter's books. This is raw, red, real. This is the war and its aftermath, and it left no one unchanged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Signal in the Noise

**Author's Note:**

> Takes places after Conrad Standing Tall/Conrad Stands Upon the Earth

“Welcome back, Your Majesty.”

The voice startles Yuuri out of his thoughts, and nearly right into the planter he’s seated on. As it is, the rough stone makes an ugly tearing noise against the seat of his trousers as he scrabbles, yelping. A strong hand grabs his shoulder, and pulls him forwards before he can tumble into the moist earth.

“Whoa, easy there.” Yozak lets go of him once he’s caught his balance; Yuuri’s starlight-adjusted eyes can just make out the grin that’s evident in his voice. “Sorry about that,” he adds, as an afterthought. 

“Yozak,” breathes Yuuri, staring. 

“Yup. Heard you took a little trip this afternoon. You okay, Your Majesty?” He sits down on the stone border beside Yuuri; as always, the silence of his movements is at odds with his size. 

“Yozak,” repeats Yuuri, still a little shocked. And then, out of nowhere: “You were there.”

Yozak cocks his head, confused. “I was where?”

Yuuri straightens, regaining his certainty. “I want you to tell me about Conrad and Luttenburg.” He pauses, shakes his head. “No. What Luttenburg meant – what happened because of it. 

There’s a pause, the courtyard around them still and silent. The gardens in this time are well-kept, the smell of damp earth mingled with the thicker fragrance of the blossoms in the night air. Yuuri can identify the scent of only one, Conrad Stands Upon the Earth. It blooms still, like it did through Luttenburg, and through Big Shimaron. 

Finally, Yozak speaks. He’s not looking at Yuuri, but off into the distance. “Why don’t you ask the Captain?”

If he had been there this afternoon, he wouldn’t have asked. If he had seen Conrad happy, perfectly at peace, he would know. Would know Yuuri could never say anything to make him look like he did in the past: betrayed, abandoned, thrown away like garbage.

But this is Yozak; he was there then, and he’s been by Conrad’s side for the twenty years since. He’s seen it all, every minute of it.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” Yuuri says, quietly. “I don’t want to remind him – I never want to see him look like that. Not because of me – no – not ever.” Even as he says it, though, he plays the implications back in his head. And then smacks himself with the palm of his hand. “Ah – I didn’t mean I want to hurt you! I don’t – oh, just forget it.” He leaps to his feet, face hot with embarrassment. 

Yozak catches his wrist before he can flee. “The reason so many people here hate the humans so deeply is because they showed us just how wretched we are,” he says. His voice is utterly conversational; the juxtaposition of it against his brittle words is enough to make Yuuri completely forget his faux-pas. 

“Huh?” Yuuri turns, but Yozak isn’t looking at him. His jaw is tilted up at a sharp angle, eyes staring at the stars.

“It must’ve surprised you, when you first came here. How we can live so closely with humans, and hate them so much. It wasn’t always that bad. I’m not saying the war changed everything, that it started something that wasn’t there before. But in some ways – for some people – it made things a lot worse.”

Yuuri sits down again, slowly. Yozak pulls one leg up against his chest, and wraps his arms loosely around it. “You already know about Luttenburg. That we were sent out to prove our heritage didn’t affect our loyalty.”

Yuuri nods. “They sent you without proper supplies, or armour.”

Yozak snorts. “Yeah. That was von Spitzburg and Geigen Huber. Not sure which one of them cooked the idea up – probably Geigen Huber. Von Spitzburg wanted to twist the knife in the Maou’s side, make her realise who was holding the reins by making her send her own son to his death. It was her he wanted to stomp on, not Conrad. Geigen Huber just wanted us gone.” He glances down briefly at Yuuri, and shrugs. “Sorry, Your Majesty. Didn’t say it wouldn’t be a biased story.”

Yuuri feels cold right down to his bones, like someone coated them with liquid nitrogen to freeze him from the inside out, but he refuses to let himself shiver. Shakes his head stiffly instead. “I asked.”

“Well, however it was, we ended up on the frontlines without the men or equipment we needed. We took Luttenburg as ordered, and it cost every damn man in our division but two. We turned the war; if we’d had armour and a proper force, most of us would’ve lived to celebrate it.” Yozak is quiet for a moment, so still Yuuri’s sure he isn’t breathing. When he begins again, it’s in a harder voice.

“I got split off from the Captain early on in the fighting; it wasn’t until everything was over that I found him again, lying with the corpses with a hole in his side the size of my hand. We mostly had sabers – great for guerrilla fighting, but terrible against real armour. The humans had broadswords, and there ain’t much room for error there.” He clenches and unclenches his hand as he speaks, still staring off at the distant castle wall. 

“Anyway, I found him and dragged him off the battlefield. I really thought he was a goner. It took me more than an hour to find the squad that was supposed to be our flank. They were a mess, plenty of casualties and officers with their heads so far up their – well, they were useless. Their medics were overworked, and they didn’t have time or energy to do much for the Captain. They closed up the worst of his wound, but that was it; wouldn’t even send us back to Shin Makoku.”

“You mean they wouldn’t give you an escort?”

Yozak smiled sourly. “They wouldn’t give us a horse. So I stole one the next morning when they were at breakfast. That’s mostly how we got back. It was a five-day trip with the Captain in the state he was in; every now and then we’d meet up with a regiment and I’d get them to patch up the Captain. Every single damn one of them requisitioned my horse, and I stole it back before we left. Makes a good story, huh?”

Behind him, the wind is brushing gently through the flowers, wafting their scent over him. Somehow, the courtyard feels similar to the way it did back then; cold, empty, dead. “I don’t think so, Yozak,” he says, softly. 

“Yeah, I didn’t at the time, either. By the last check-point, the Captain was looking like death warmed over. Too weak to ride, never mind walk. By then, the news had gotten around about the victory at Luttenburg and our division – plenty of idiots in the corps were already calling us heroes. And their commanding officers were too tight-fisted to even give us a horse. I stole some peasant’s donkey cart on the last day and brought the Captain into Blood Pledge Castle like that, the great hero of Luttenburg lying in a hay cart like a sack of potatoes.”

Yuuri swallows hard. There’s no danger of his making a sound; his throat is completely blocked up.

“I think that’s when Lord von Bielefeld went a bit off the rails. Everyone else was too glad to see Conrad back to care – then. But he saw his older brother, the hero of a country of glamorous and proud men, dragged up in a donkey cart when he was at death’s door. Either the society he admired and respected was nothing but a cowardly rabble, or his brother was worthless. I guess it was easier to ostracise one man then everything else.”

Yuuri wants to defend him. He does. But he can still remember the first time he saw Wolfram and Conrad in the same room, and even if he could get the words out he can’t put them together in his mind. 

Yozak shifts, dropping his leg and leaning forwards. “Even with the healers here, it was a week before we knew he’d pull through, and the war was still going on all the while. And then, just after it seemed like he was really going to make it, we heard that Suzanna Julia had died on the front lines. The Captain had a relapse, another week of near misses, then nearly a month of recovery. By the time he was well enough to leave the castle, the world was a different place.

“Lord von Gratz defected from Shin Makoku, and Geigen Huber was exiled. The Maou was broken by the war she hadn’t been able to prevent, by Julia’s death and her son’s losses, and stepped down. I don’t know if it was the war or watching his brother teeter on the edge of death for weeks, but Lord von Voltaire locked almost all of his feelings away and turned hard and stony. Lord Wolfram decided it was easier to hate humans for what we all lost than his own kind, and refused to acknowledge Conrad as his blood. He wasn’t the only one – many Mazoku found that the easiest option.”

“And Conrad?”

Yozak leans back, hands resting on the edge of the planter to anchor him. “The Captain lost all his men, one of his best friends, and in a way both his brothers. His mother was too ashamed to be in the same room with him. And still much of Mazoku society saw him as a man who had had to win his honour rather than simply being worthy of it. I once heard a man in a bar say we bought our honour with our lives, and that made it even more worthy. Lord von Voltaire broke his jaw for him,” he adds, reflectively. 

For some reason, Yuuri can picture the scene clearly in his mind: Gwendal standing hard-faced and disgusted over the prone man, his knuckles bleeding. He closes his eyes, but it’s etched just as clearly in the darkness there. Yozak continues without noticing, tone detached as though the story he’s telling has nothing to do with him. 

“The Captain lost his way for a while. Everything seemed wretched and ugly, and he had nothing to care for. He became cold and bitter. Well, many of us were, back then.”

“And then?” prompts Yuuri.

“And then Shinou entrusted you to him.” Yozak pauses, still staring up at the stars, and Yuuri glances up to see what he’s seeing – thousands of tiny silver pinpricks, gleaming in the darkness. For all he knows, the Earth is out there somewhere, his own sun shining like a beacon to guide him home. “He hasn’t talked to me about it much, but something happened on your world. It wasn’t the mission, wasn’t Julia’s soul. For some reason, he decided to pull himself out of it, decided to change. Whatever prompted it, it was for you, Your Majesty. When he came back, he was a different man. The man he is now.”

The wind picks up again, this time in earnest. The large trees in the courtyard sway with it, leaves rustling. Overhead, Yuuri can hear the castle’s flags flapping, occasionally giving a sharp snap as they are whipped around. 

“You should be going in now, Your Majesty. His Lordship will be missing you soon,” he adds, meaning Wolfram. 

Yuuri, recognizing the dismissal, stands slowly. “Ah. R-right.” He sweeps the dust and grit from his pants mechanically, still too lost in the horrors of the past to be fully present. “Thank you, Yozak,” he manages, making an effort. 

Yozak shrugs. “It’s all history, now.” The flatness of his tone sparks a small flame of anger in Yuuri.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not important. If we forget the lessons we learned, then your pain, and Conrad’s, and everyone else’s was meaningless. I don’t want that.”

There’s a small silence from Yozak, then a half-amused, half-impressed laugh. “As expected from His Majesty. I should give you more credit. I’ll tell you one more thing, then. And don’t protest that it’s not true, or you wouldn’t use it – because you will, if you have to, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You were the one who brought Conrad back, when even his family couldn’t. Lord von Bielefeld might not realise or admit it, but the former Maou and Lord von Voltaire do. That’s a debt that they will repay, if you ask it.”

“I –” begins Yuuri. He doesn’t get any further before Yozak stands and drops a heavy hand on his shoulder. 

“I told you, don’t say anything. Even the Maou needs to be able to make bargains, sometimes. Never throw away debts. Especially not one that was bought this dearly.” Yozak’s voice is low for the first time tonight, rough and bare. 

“Yozak…”

The tall Mazoku squeezes his shoulder briefly, then strides off towards the far gate. “See you later, Your Majesty,” he shouts over his shoulder, voice carefree as usual again, as though it had never been otherwise. Yuuri watches him go, just one more shadow in a courtyard of shadows. 

He sits down slowly, shivering now in the cold wind. The stone is rough under his palms; he hadn’t noticed it before, when Yozak’s words held his whole attention. 

“He’s right,” says a low, calm voice beside him. Yuuri turns slowly, feeling like he’s chest-deep in water. Conrad’s standing there, looking down at him with soft eyes. “The debt is yours, to call in if you ever need it.”

“Conrad…” He can’t find any way to put the feeling in his chest into words. Even if he could, his throat has closed up again, choking him silently. 

“You should go inside, Your Majesty. Wolfram is –”

It’s the title that does it, that startles him out of his paralysis. Yuuri stands, turns, and wraps his arms around Conrad, forehead pressed hard against his shoulder. Conrad smells of leather and sword polish and soap – strong, clean scents. The serge of his jacket is rough compared to Yuuri’s cotton school uniform, but it absorbs the tears just as well.

“It’s Yuuri, _Nazukeoya_ ,” he whispers, tightly-fisted hands digging into Conrad’s back. It’s probably uncomfortable but he can’t stop, and Conrad doesn’t complain. 

He stands there until the tears stop, until he can trust his voice again. He lets go of Conrad and wipes his face with his sleeve, thankful that it’s dark and there’s no one to report his breach of etiquette to Gunter. “Okay. Let’s go inside.”

“Of course, Yuuri.”

END


End file.
